1760s

If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.

1768

★ 7.1

The body politic, like the human body, begins to die from its birth, and bears in itself the cause of its destruction.

The Social Contract · 1762

★ 6.4

Censorship is crucial for preserving morals but useless for restoring them.

The Social Contract · 1762

★ 5.5

The strongest is never strong enough to be always the master, unless he transforms his strength into right, and obedience into duty.

The Social Contract · 1762

★ 5.5

Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hinder legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.

James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D · 1763

★ 5.4

I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: "Oh Lord, make my enemies ridiculous." And God granted it.

1767

★ 5.4

The king, moreover, is not only incapable of doing wrong, but even of thinking wrong: he can never mean to do an improper thing: in him is no folly or weakness.

Commentaries on the Laws of England · 1765

★ 5.3

Consider, Sir, how insignificant this will appear a twelvemonth hence.

In general, the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to the other.

James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D · 1763

★ 4.6

Philosophical literature

Philosophical Dictionary · 1764

★ 4.6

God is always with the strongest battalions.

Frederick the Great

1760

★ 4.5

The first step is the hardest.

Marie Anne de Vichy-Chamrond

1763

★ 4.5

In the strict sense of the term, a true democracy has never existed, and never will exist.

The Social Contract · 1762

★ 3.9

The right of conquest has no foundation other than the right of the strongest.

Let every sluice of knowledge be opened and set a-flowing.

The Social Contract · 1762

★ 3.9

Dissertation · Newspaper · Political literature

John Adams

1765

★ 3.8

Man was formed for society.

Commentaries on the Laws of England · 1765

★ 3.8

When the masses get involved in reasoning, everything is lost.

1766

★ 3.8

Most schemes of political improvement are very laughable things.

Should I live for centuries, the sweet period of my youth would not be reborn, nor effaced from my memory.

James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D · 1769

★ 3.8

Novel · Epistolary novel

Beauty's of a fading nature, Has a season, and is gone!

1761

★ 3.7

Song

Robert Burns

1764

★ 3.7

People have declaimed against luxury for two thousand years, in verse and in prose, and people have always delighted in it.

1764

★ 3.7

It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.

Laws, like houses, lean on one another.

James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D · 1769

★ 3.7

Political literature

Edmund Burke

1760

★ 3.6

Taxation without representation is tyranny.

Genius is of no country.

Charles Churchill

The Rosciad · 1761

★ 3.6

James Otis

1761

★ 3.6

Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law.

The jaws of power are always opened to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible to destroy, the freedom of thinking, speaking and writing.

1764

★ 3.6

Dissertation · Newspaper · Political literature

John Adams

1765

★ 3.6

Dissertation · Newspaper · Political literature

Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right... and a desire to know-but besides this they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded, and envied kind of knowledge. I mean of the characters and conduct of their rulers.

John Adams

1765

★ 3.6

How small, of all that human hearts endure, That part which laws or kings can cause or cure!

1765

★ 3.6

Whence it is that in our law the goodness of a custom depends upon its having been used time out of mind; or, in the solemnity of our legal phrase, time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary.

It is a general popular error to imagine the loudest complainers for the public, to be the most anxious for its welfare.

Commentaries on the Laws of England · 1765

★ 3.6

Pamphlet · Political literature

Edmund Burke

1769

★ 3.6

All presumptive evidence of felony should be admitted cautiously; for the law holds, that it is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer.

It is the nature of an hypothesis, when once a man has conceived it, that it assimilates every thing to itself, as proper nourishment; and, from the first moment of your begetting it, it generally grows the stronger by every thing you see, hear, read, or understand.

Commentaries on the Laws of England · 1769

★ 3.6

Novel

Laurence Sterne

Tristram Shandy · 1760

★ 3.5

Novel · Satire

Our greatest glory is, not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

The Citizen of the World · 1761

★ 3.5

Where wealth and freedom reign, contentment fails, And honour sinks where commerce long prevails.

1764

★ 3.5

In matters of religion and matrimony I never give any advice; because I will not have anybody's torments in this world or the next laid to my charge.

Lord Chesterfield

1765

★ 3.5

Song

Then join hand in hand, brave Americans all! By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall.

John Dickinson

The Liberty Song · 1768

★ 3.5